Brazil Oligarchs and Finance Magnates Are Taking Over Brazil Government

I really like Glenn Greenwald, but he's really jumped the shark on reporting on Brazil. The amount of corruption surrounding Dilma, Lula and the PT in general is crazy out of control. Greenwald likes to wash over and not mention or barely mention the petrolão scandal like it's a mere footnote.

Dilma was chairperson of the board of Petrobras during the entirety of the scandal. Given the magnitude of the corruption, either she was involved or was incompetent. Furthermore, her administration has cooked the books in terms of reporting on the economic health of the country and her administration is responsible for the biggest economic decline in years. Furthermore, we can't really investigate wrongdoing because without things getting political because the constitution in Brazil makes it so only the STF, the equivalent of SCOTUS, is allowed to investigate and bring to trial the president and congresspeople. This bottle neck and the politics of bringing a trial mean that almost no one can be investigated. Dilma even used this fact to shield the former president from investigation by appointing him to a cabinet position just as he was about to be deposed.

I'm not saying those other side of this (politicians and media) are without wrongdoing. He does a good job of pointing out why they are scum too, but to gloss over many details in order to make Dilma out to be some sort of blameless victim of injustice is laughable.

No one on either side of the aisle is innocent in all this. It's positively shameful.

The article does not mention the process of the vote for impeachment. At the impeachment vote, all politicians had 1 minute to declare their opinion and the ones who voted for impeachment did 2 things:

1) they voted for impeachment in the name of their sons, their city and their country and showed hate against the president. 2) none of them accused the president of wrongdoing. None stated that the president should be impeached because she broke the law.

This shows very clearly what the motives of the politicians are: we want to get rid of this president becuase we do not like her and we use any illegal excuse to do it. I feel embarrassed living in Brazil.

> So to summarize: Brazilian financial and media elites are pretending that corruption is the reason for removing the twice-elected president of the country as they conspire to install and empower the country’s most corrupted political figures. Brazilian oligarchs will have succeeded in removing from power a moderately left-wing government that won four straight elections in the name of representing the country’s poor, and are literally handing control over the Brazilian economy (the world’s seventh largest) to Goldman Sachs and bank industry lobbyists.

Contrary to what we see in the US, where each network favors a specific side (Fox, MSNBC), in BR the main print and TV media are all in one side of the aisle. While the internet helps, most people in BR don't read anything that isn't posted on Facebook. This, IMO, is the biggest problem with the way things are being debated and decided here.

A lot of unusual stuff has been going on with the government, from a VP been distant from the president to the president offering positions for receiving support. I believe this president government fall a part by lack of political support, and the opposition received it with open arms.

Then this government actually had some irregularities which have been ignored in other situations, but this time they are using it to process the president, which are going to be judged or not if Senate understand that she didn't commit any crime.

Media here always supported one side only, I don't remember seeing it divided.

The process she is going through is not about corruption, is about fiscal responsibility, some money had to be passed to public banks and the government delayed it to close the balance without showing some financial problems.

This is so clear. Their excuses are for the "whole" government, not for what the process is really about. They say "She knew about everything", but they do not have anything else other than that.

They also say that what is in the process is a crime. But she just moved money from one place to another, in order to keep social programs running. Did she delay banks payments for this money? Yes, but also paying all interest rates later on as well. So it is not about getting some illegal loan, it was all about delaying payments. Same acts are and were done by other governments, including state and presidential up to today. Will they also be removed? Sure not.

Unfortunately, the reality is these people want to open up the country to external investments by means of allowing the use of natural resources by international companies. This is what being planned with, for eg., Pre-Salt layer. The new ministries which are going to take over the current ones, in case of victory, were all-in for such a bill just approved in Senate.

They are trading six of one for half a dozen of the other, playing with Constitutional mechanisms which are there to protect the country, not to be used as in a Parliamentarism system. The real problem is in the old thinking people of the lower house and Senate, owners of big amounts of lands, supporters of current great media and stealers. Just look at who started this whole process, a guy accused at the Panama Papers of laundering money in Switzerland. Who is he? The President of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha. The guy who is leading this take over. That's just stupidity to support..

She had to go, regardless of the immediate consequences. Yes Temer, Cunha and the others are thieves. THIEVES. However so is Lula and also, Dilma. Unless she is chronically, grossly, impossibly negligent and incompetent, she knew what went on in Petrobras regardless of what the kangaroo inquiry who condemned no one of matter said. $2B dollars went down the drain. She had to go.